INVESTIGATING THE GEOMETRIC HABITS OF MIND AND THE HEMISPHERIC DOMINANCE STATUS OF MATHEMATICS TEACHERS

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Aditya

The study investigates the geometric habits of mind and how hemispheric dominance relates to mathematics teachers’ thinking patterns. Geometric habits of mind are treated as cognitive processes that help learners adopt effective ways of thinking about encountered problems and connect results to underlying thoughts. The research observes that most mathematics teachers dominantly use the left brain, while some show right-dominant or balanced activation. Overall, teachers with different hemispheric dominance reach an adequate level of geometric habits of mind.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages16

Reading Time40 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Thinking and habits of mind

General vs. mathematical habits of mind

Geometric habits of mind

INVESTIGATING THE GEOMETRIC HABITS OF MIND AND THE HEMISPHERIC DOMINANCE STATUS OF MATHEMATICS TEACHERS Özlem TURAN, Aytaç KURTULUŞ Abstract: The geometric habits of mind are a process that enables the adoption of ways of thinking about the problems encountered and that works for filling the gap between the results and the thoughts behind these results. It is also important that which cerebral hemisphere activates the geometric habits of mind, so geometric habits of mind and hemispheric dominance of mathematics teachers were investigated in that regard. It was observed that most of the mathematics teachers dominantly used their left brain and some of them who used their right brain dominantly or who used their right and left brain equally. It was concluded that the geometric habits of mind of both the teachers who dominated the left brain and the right brain and used both sides equally were atthe desired level and mathematics teachers who have different hemispheric dominance were sufficient in terms of characteristics of geometric habits of mind. Key words: Habits of mind, geometric habits of mind, hemispheric dominance status, mathematics teachers. 1. Introduction Thinking is a planned mental process consisting of activities such as classifying, separating and evaluating the information obtained in various ways in order to achieve the ultimate goal which is to interpret current situation (Dinçer and Saracaloğlu, 2011; Bono, 2007) . Healthy functioning of this process is possible with the use of habits of mind (Köse and Tanışlı, 2014) . Habits of mind manifest themselves in decision-making processes in uncertain situations (Leikin, 2007) . Habits of mind involving both thinking and habit skills; is the ability of the individual to select and apply the most appropriate one of various high-level behaviours such as questioning and creativity in solving an encountered problem (Köse and Tanışlı, 2014; Lim and Selden, 2009) . Moreover, studies have been carried out to show that solving problems with different methods as a habit of mind is both a supporter and a necessity of advanced mathematical thinking. (Leikin, 2007) . Habits of mind are examined in two groups as general and mathematical. While general habits of mind include fundamental thinking processes such as describing, discovery, and visualization; mathematical habits, on the other hand, is a continuous questioning ability that performs actions of thinking in unusual situations and these habits make progress according to the learning steps (Köse and Tanışlı, 2014; Gürbüz, Ağsu and Güler, 2018) . Several opinions about habits of mind are discussed in the literature. Harel (2007) emphasizes that one's way of thinking determines his/her thinking aspect of habits of mind, in other words, he/she defines habits of mind as adopted ways of thinking (Lim and Selden, 2009). Harel (2008), who divides mathematical habits into two parts, defines the first part as definitions, problems, solutions and evidence accepted by the society, in short, the institutionalized ways of understanding where there is everything about mathematics, and defines the second part as the ways of thinking that include conceptual tools that facilitate generalization (Köse and Tanışlı, 2014; Lim and Selden, 2009) . The distinction between these two paths emphasizes the importance of habits of mind that are not frequently included in mathematics programs, and therefore, Harel (2007) argues that ways of thinking and ways of understanding should be included in the learning objectives (Lim and Selden, 2009, p : 1576). Lim and Selen (2009) define the concept of habits of mind as a self-developing cognitive action taken by the person in the first approach that comes to his mind in the face of a problem. However, this spontaneous waiting is not seen as a desirable situation. Because the action to be taken in the face of the problem involves only certain solutions to specific situations and this action is

FAQs

What are geometric habits of mind in the study?

Geometric habits of mind are defined as processes for exploring relations in geometry, generating and generalizing new geometric ideas through those relations.

How does the study connect hemispheric dominance to teaching?

It examines which cerebral hemisphere activates geometric habits of mind and investigates teachers’ hemispheric dominance status in relation to those habits.

What hemispheric dominance patterns were observed among mathematics teachers?

Most teachers dominantly used the left brain, while some used the right brain dominantly or used both hemispheres equally.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Aditya